Tag Archives: cause of depression

http://tinyurl.com/2fclwld. A very interesting new study shows that angry, hostile behavior by husbands results in a much higher incidence of depression in their wives.

It seems intuitive, but research documentation is validating and has some interesting implications.

The reverse, however, is dramatically less likely, with no significant correlation found for men. Women are clearly much more dramatically affected by how they are treated in relationships than guys. Find a depressed woman and there’s much more likely to be partner abuse of some sort behind it.

I wonder if research would show the same in relationships between unmarried couples. I’d be willing to bet it would. Most materials on domestic violence don’t differentiate the effects according to marital status at all, although they also show that men are *vastly* more likely to be abusive than women, and any hostility from women towards their partners is most frequently a *reaction* to that abuse rather than a primary behavior.

It would also be interesting to see the impact in a d/s context, although I doubt we’ll ever see such a study. I’d bet that a lot of doms’ complaints about noncompliance from subs may well be rooted in depression and/or abusive behavior by the dominants themselves. Certainly I have observed an anecdotal correlation in hundreds of reports from subs in the near-decade I’ve been in the scene. Depressed and/or abused women are likely to have less ability and/or even desire to comply with an abusive dominant’s wishes. Attempts to comply with his wishes or to otherwise mollify his anger may be less effective as well. Certainly research has shown that no matter what a woman does if involved with an abusive man, it is unlikely to stop the abuse, and even attempts to comply and placate may actually aggravate him further. This is because his abusiveness comes from within himself, not from external causes, including his partner. Abusers abuse their partners with or without provocation.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/03/11/domestic.violence.personality/ – Abused women have 2-1/2 times the depression that nonabused ones do.

Many other reports and studies implicate implicate intimate partner abuse as one of the most common causes for depression, and among women in particular.